Mitsubishi ES-100 and EX-100 projector Review

October 26, 2005 - Art Feierman

Positioning

Of course the projector can sit on a table, or be ceiling mounted. The projector’s zoom lens has a ratio of 1.2:1 which means you can vary the distance to a screen by 20% from the closest, to the furthest you can position it. Now, many projectors have more than 20% range, but again, 20% is probably the most common range on under 7 pound projectors. Few projectors offer more than 50% placement range.

Noise

These Mitsubishi projectors are about average in terms of noise. 35db in full power, is considered acceptable in almost all environments (except home theater), and the pitch of the sound is fairly low, so less noticeable than projectors producing higher pitched noise. In economy mode the 30 db, make them quieter than most.

Remote Control

The remote has all the functions you would expect but does not provide full diskpad type remote mousing. A good remote, with a functional layout.

Menus

The ES-100 and EX-100 projectors can access the Main menu from the remote or the control panel. There are four main menu options, and they remain visible as you work your way through one or another of them. (you can see them at the top of the image to your right).

There is a great deal of control beyone the CineRich I described. Besides the usual Brightness and Contrast, there is sRGB (calibrated color), a Temp control that changes the image from a warm, to neutral, to cool color balance. Color saturation, Tint and Sharpness are controls that work only in video mode (typical, although many business projectors may only have one or two of the three). Gamma mode let’s you lighten or darken the mid ranges, to best suit the room lighting you are presenting in.

The Installation screen has all the usual, so you can front or rear project, change background color and access the economy mode or standard mode for the lamp.

Especially nice, are the Auto Power settings, particularly the ability to have the projector power down if there is no input signal. I recommend having that on, so that you never accidently leave the projector on all night or weekend.

Lastly I have a shot of the feature menu. As you can see, you can control where the menus appear on the screen, you have several more settings for video, and control of the aspect ratio (“anamorphic”).

For security, you can password protect these projectors – without the password they won’t power up. That’s a great thief deterrent – if the thief knows that it’s there!